What is transhumanism?
Transhumanism is a way of thinking about the future that is based on the premise that the human species in its current form does not represent the end of our development but rather a comparatively early phase. We formally define it as follows: (1) The intellectual and cultural movement that affirms the possibility and desirability of fundamentally improving the human condition through applied reason, especially by developing and making widely available technologies to eliminate aging and to greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities. (2) The study of the ramifications, promises, and potential dangers of technologies that will enable us to overcome fundamental human limitations, and the related study of the ethical matters involved in developing and using such technologies. Transhumanism can be viewed as an extension of humanism, from which it is partially derived. Humanists believe that humans matter, that individuals matter. We might not be perfect, but
Russell Blackford is editor-in-chief of The Journal of Evolution and Technology and a Fellow of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. Parijata Mackey is an undergraduate at the University of Chicago, and an Intern with the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. Warning: Advances in technology are closer than they appear. The doubling rate of medical knowledge is three years – that is, the next three years of medical research will yield as much knowledge as has been yielded in all of human history. The next three years will double our knowledge again, and again, and so on. This exponential growth in knowledge will rapidly enable us to eradicate disease and radically improve the human condition. Indeed, we will be able to look beyond curing the sick, towards a future in which we make ourselves more than healthy. We will be able to enhance our memory and our intellectual capacity. We will use technology to make ourselves faster, more efficient, and radically longer-
Transhumanism seeks to strengthen characteristics, such as youth, creativity, and intelligence, by using medical technology to develop or eliminate certain genes, and other scientific innovations, such as robotics, to enable an enhanced human race. Transhumanists believe in altering the human genome to eliminate disease, weakness, and aging, thus sculpting later generations. These advanced humans, or posthumans, will be capable of achievements of which we can only dream. Transhumanism philosophy employs technology we’ve developed for other means to enhance people’s health, ability, life span, memory, happiness, and intelligence, using artificial techniques. They conceive of a category of transhuman along the path to becoming posthuman. A posthuman peacefully coexists with other humans, but reaps benefits ranging from altered DNA, selective reproduction, prosthetic limbs, nanorobotics, synthetic organs, sensory magnification, anti-aging regimens, portable telecommunication devices, and
the t r a n s h u m a n i s m 2009 _____________________] The Italian verb transumanare or transumanar was used for the first time by Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) in the Divine Comedy. It means go outside the human condition and perception and in English could be to Transhumanate or to Transhumanize. T.S. Eliot wrote about the risks of the human journey in becoming illuminated as a process by which the human is Transhumanised in his play The Cocktail Party (The Complete Poems and Plays 1909 – 1950, published by Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., New York). The actual concept of transhuman as an evolutionary transition was first expressed by FM-2030. His trilogy, Up-Wingers, Telespheres and Optimism One (1973) constitutes the beginnings of the transhumanist philosophy, as well as his contributing final chapter in Woman, Year 2000 (1972) Ideas about humanity and evolution were explored by Julian Huxley in his writings on evolutionary humanism in the book Evolution: The Modern Synthesis (1942)
Transhumanism is a realistically optimistic and rationalistic interdisciplinary approach to understanding and evaluating the possibilities for overcoming biological limitations through technological progress. It is based on the assumption that the “human condition” is not a constant, but can be augmented and enhanced, almost without limit. Transhumanists seek to expand technological opportunities in order to enhance human intellectual, physical, and emotional capacities to superhuman levels.
